Technical development, such as the development of integrated circuit designs, typically relies on software-based graphical systems to enable a technical drawing or design to be created. In using such editing software, it is advantageous for a user to select an instance master of a predetermined layout within the software editor in preparation for moving it to a new location within a further particular reference frame, for a further layout or design, particularly in the case of typical electronic design automation (“EDA”) software where it is used for custom digital, mixed-signal and analog designs at the device, cell, and block levels.
In a typical EDA layout software tool, after the instance master is selected from a integrated circuit layout and is begun to be moved (or dragged) by the designer, a “ghost image” appears as the selected instance master portion is now being moved, where the selected instance master portion is highlighted or otherwise presented in a manner that stands out from the rest of the integrated circuit design such that the designer can see the selected instance master portion move across the display of the EDA layout software tool. However, since the ghost image may also contain as many geometric figures as the selected instance master, when the ghost image is moved, servers and computer-supported graphics may often be challenged to failure in rendering or moving the ghost image, depending on the computing power available. One solution is to reduce the number of dragged images within the instance master such that it may be a few hundred in quantity. By reducing the number of dragged images, the resulting ghost image may be more easily moved by a designer.
Unfortunately, when the number of geometric figures selected is substantially less than the original number of geometric figures in the instance master, the content of the instance master may not appear on a designer's screen, making it difficult to move as well as accurately place an instance master to a final design location. In general, it is recognized that the graphics module in typical EDA layout software will only permit the dragging of the perimeter of the instance master and not the content of the instance master, as it is typically too processor-intensive to drag more than a thousand geometric figures of a selected instance master at any one time, even if the instance master had contained hundreds of thousands of geometric figures originally.
This limitation can create inaccuracies for a designer in the geometric placement of the instance master into other designs, the correct spacing of the instance master geometries with respect to top level geometries, etc., for example.
What is therefore desired is a method that overcomes these challenges and provides for enabling the display and movement of a boundary box (e.g., physical shell) of the instance master inclusive of specific predetermined geometric figures which are proximate to the boundary box.